Release Notes: Here's What's New in Your Ontic Platform
Release Date: January 28, 2021
Summary:
New Home Page New UI
What it is: A new and improved Ontic platform Home Page featuring five actionable widgets that include:
Opportunities to customize view
Personalized updates for each user
Dynamic icons highlighting what’s new
In-page actions
A “Quick View” sidebar (available throughout the platform)
Why it matters: As the first thing you see upon logging in, it is critical that the home page is useful, showing actionable and personalized updates. These design changes bring key information to the surface, helping you work more efficiently, take action with fewer clicks, and focus on what is happening right now.
How it works:
Home Page is the screen that you see after you log into Ontic. This screen has 5 “widgets” or sections, each adding unique, personalized value to your login experience.
The widget at the top of the screen, “In The Spotlight” highlights changes in the platform over the last 48 hours. These numbers are accompanied by a trend arrow indicating whether this number is higher or lower than your usual counts. The numbers featured “In The Spotlight” can be added to or removed from view by clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the widget and toggling the metrics on or off.
Directly below the “In The Spotlight” widget is the “What’s Happening” section. This widget is constantly updating with new insights - bringing the latest from entity actions and social feeds right to your home page. These updates are from entities you have access to, and the social feeds are related to the topics that you have set up. By clicking on any of these updates, you will immediately be brought to the entity profile or signal card associated with that update. From there, you can take action - like, updating a tag, or adding a note - without ever leaving your home page. A cumulation of your personalized notifications can be seen in the “What’s Happening” widget as well.
On the right side of the Home Page, you will see three smaller widgets. “Quick Links” will get you to a new part of the platform in one click. The links included in this widget can be edited by clicking on the three dots at the top right of the widget and toggling links on and off. You can also move the “Quick Links” widget up or down on the page from this view.
The “Planner” widget will highlight any open tasks assigned to you, as well as upcoming milestones for all your entities. Again, this widget can be moved up or down by clicking on the three dots at the top of the widget’s right corner.
“Recently Accessed” is a widget which will show you entities you have recently accessed, new observations that have been added to the platform, and the investigations that you were last working on. This widget allows for a quick, easy way to pick up right where you left off. By clicking on any of the entities, observations or investigations featured in this widget, you will seamlessly be brought to that item’s main page.
Please note: Any changes you make to your home page layout will only affect your view. Your home page will stay in the layout you customize until the next time you change it - even after you log out.
Quick View: Move seamlessly throughout the platform with Ontic’s new “Quick View.” This right-sidebar consists of clickable icons and is available throughout most of the Ontic platform. These icons allow you to access the three right-side widgets that you have configured on your home page, see tasks organized by status, and add notes, and view the planner, from anywhere in Ontic.
Alerts and Notifications Update Enhancement
What it is: The ability to set Notification preferences during user Role creation. Additionally, notifications and alerts preferences now include desktop notifications and mobile app push notifications.
Why it matters: Notification configuration is key to making sure that teams are getting the alerts they need to do their job. Giving admins the ability to assign notification types based on roles helps to provide visibility for leaders into what kind of alerts their teams are receiving and ensure everyone with that role is receiving the alerts they are expected to see.
How it works: When creating a role, you will see a tab to set notifications on the far right side.
From this tab, an admin will be able to set notification permissions for the role they are creating or editing. Notifications are organized into three categories: Signal, Observation and Entity. The admin will be able to decide whether the notification will reach the user via web, email and/or mobile app. Any notifications set up to come from a rule will be in addition to the notifications given to a user through their role.
After making the selections for the role, don’t forget to click “Activate.”
Please note: The Role notifications function as the minimum for alerts a user receives. Additional notifications outside of a user’s role can be set up by that user from their login under their Preferences if they hope to receive more alerts. Users cannot “unsubscribe” from notifications given to them by their role.
Criminal Cold Search Enhancement
What it is: The ability to perform a criminal activity search without having to create an entity first.
Why it matters: This is valuable for many users who wish to conduct preliminary research on an individual(s) before deciding to place that person as an entity within Ontic. By providing this capability within Ontic you can perform criminal history research without having to lean on another, disconnected tool. After viewing the search results users can convert the information into an Entity.
How it works: From the 9-box navigation in the Research section you can select Criminal Activity Search. Enter the individual’s Name and Date of Birth to perform the search and you can export the details or choose to convert the information into an Entity.
TLOxp Cold Search + Export TLOxp Search Results New Features
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about TLOxp in Ontic.
What it is: The ability to search and export TLOxp reports without having to create an Entity first.
Why it matters: There are times when you need to first identify information about an individual and discuss with your team before you can make a determination of whether or not to add the individual as an Entity in Ontic. Now you can perform a TLOxp search to generate information, export the information from the system, and review the results with other team members who may not have access to Ontic.
How it works: From the Research section perform any type of TLOxp search or view the research history of any TLOXp search performed and export the results as a PDF.
LPR Feed Updates Enhancement
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about Ontic’s Fixed LPR capabilities
What it is: The ability to convert LPR hits into observations and initiate investigations, to filter intelligence feeds by vehicle lists and custom tags, and to easily indicate how many times a vehicle has been spotted by cameras.
Why it matters: This will make LPR hits more actionable while providing new insights. The ability to filter feeds by tags and vehicle lists will enable clients to mute or filter out known vehicles such as employees and to focus only on POIs. The indicator for the number of times a vehicle has been spotted is a key flag to help users identify repeat offenders or vehicles that drive by numerous times. The ability to create an observation based on an LPR hit enables teams to streamline investigations.
How it works:
You can convert an LPR read into an observation directly from an intelligence feed.
You can filter the intelligence feed by vehicle lists and custom tags by selecting the filter icon in the feed. Selecting the desired option will filter the column to show only plate reads that match the criteria.
Note: The intelligence signal now highlights how many times the vehicle was spotted by one of your cameras.
Dark Web Updates Enhancement
Please contact your Ontic team for more information on Ontic’s Dark Web offering
What it is: Several enhancements to our dark web offering to make data more actionable. Enhancements include Translate button on signals, showing a post snippet, added search criteria, and including dark web signals in rules for notifications.
Why it matters: Dark web content is longform and can be noisy, and is often in different languages. New search criteria will enable clients to more easily capture content such as SSN, CCN and email credentials without having to add the sensitive information into Ontic. By adding a snippet our clients can focus on the important part of the dark web post. Non-English one-click translation within the platform makes it easier to digest information and allows clients to stay within Ontic rather than having to copy/paste posts into a translation tool. Including dark web rules allows clients to create custom notifications based on dark web criteria rather than having to check their intelligence feeds periodically.
How it works: To translate dark web posts within Ontic create a dark web intelligence feed to populate posts from a dark web query. Directly in the post you will see a button to Translate the post. Clicking the button will translate the content into English.
Ontic’s post snippet will automatically create a truncated version of the dark web post in the intelligence feed. The post will hone in on the matching keywords and phrases from the dark web query. If you would like to expand the post you can click “show more” to view the full dark web post.
The additional search criteria in the dark web query creator allows you to create a query and select additional parameters such as “results must include SSN, CCN, email.” These enable you to create a query that will pull back only posts that contain the options you select. For example, if you create a query “Steve Jobs” and select SSN then the topic will only return posts that reference Steve Jobs and contain any SSN. With this option you do not have to type in the exact SSN to return results, and this is valuable because the query may also return results with inaccurate SSNs.
You can now create rules based on dark web content. Users can create signal rules to perform automated actions, such as send a notification to a user if a new dark web post is uncovered from a dark web topic.
Investigation Rules Enhancements
What it is: The ability to create rules that trigger actions based on conditions related to an investigation.
Why it matters: Investigation Rules will help automate workflows and trigger alerts in Ontic to drive awareness to new investigations, status changes, new evidence or changed priority levels for investigations that you are working on in Ontic. This will minimize the need to continuously monitor the investigations dashboard to spot updates. These alerts can be sent directly via email, mobile app, desktop notifications, or in the platform, and downstream actions can be automated.
How it works: From the nine-box, navigate to “Rules” under the “Administration” section. Under Rule types, you will see “Investigation Rules” as an option.
From here, you will see all existing Investigation rules that have been set up, as well as whether they are active, when they were created, who they were created or updated by, and what Workspaces they are shared in. To edit an existing rule, click on the three dots on the far right side of the rule in the list and click “edit.”
To create a new Investigations rule, make sure you have selected the Investigation Rules tab and click the blue “Create Rule” button.
Integration: Slack Notifications Beta Integration
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this Integration.
What it is: The ability to authenticate your Slack channels within Ontic to be able to receive notifications via Slack.
Why it matters: We know you do not spend all day working in the Ontic platform. This integration allows clients to receive notifications via Slack, where you may spend more time. The notifications are designed to provide enough information to be relevant and newsworthy similar to existing email notifications. This is also a great way for team members, who may not have an Ontic user seat, to receive valuable intelligence.
How it works: Please contact your Ontic team for more information about how to integrate Slack into your environment.
Integration: Salesforce New Integration
Please contact your Ontic team for more information about this Integration.
What it is: The ability to sync data from Salesforce into Ontic, and to send data from Ontic into Salesforce.
Why it matters: Salesforce stores a lot of information for businesses, but it has limited dynamic capabilities for security teams. Being able to share work completed in Ontic to update an existing database in Salesforce adds significantly to the value of both platforms. With a click of a button, or via a rule information can be sent between systems, allowing for a seamless process and enhanced productivity and collaboration between teams.
How it works: Please contact your Ontic team for more information about how to integrate Salesforce into your environment.
Release Notes: Additional Enhancements
Release Date: January 28, 2021
Task Metrics - Enhancement
What it is: The addition of Task metrics allow users to set up a dashboard which showcases metrics around task assignments in the platform. In this dashboard type, you can create widgets for all kinds of insights surrounding tasks - including the breakdown of who tasks are assigned to, task types, due dates and completion times.
BOLO: Metrics and Timeline - Enhancement
What it is: Advanced configuration of BOLO report exports. This update allows for you to select photos from the entity profile to include in the report, and the option to add items marked as “critical” from the entity timeline.
Include/Exclude Vehicle Lists in Feeds - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to create an intelligence feed for Vehicle Sightings that includes or excludes a list of vehicles. For example, if you only want the feed to show high profile POI’s vehicles, you can include only that list in the feed. On the other hand, if you don’t want alerts from family and friend’s vehicles when they drive by a residence, you can choose to exclude that list of vehicles from a feed. Please note: vehicle lists must be created under Administration > Lists before they can be used to filter a feed.
Share Collection - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to share a collection that you have curated with another user in your organization. Once a collection is shared, both users will have the ability to add to it.
Numerical Assessment Scoring - Enhancement
What it is: The ability to manage the outcome of an assessment based on a numerical score or pre-defined formula. The solution will help associate answers from an assessment questionnaire with a client’s proprietary scoring rubric to determine a threat level (as an example). Automation and workflows can be coupled as well.
Research History: Filter “Searched by” & “Entity” - Enhancement
What it is: The option to filter Research History audit log by “Searched by” and “Entity.” This functionality provides the granularity for even more visibility into what was searched and what research was done from the platform.